Thunder Man

In the Pomo creation narrative recorded by Edwin Loeb, Coyote had no wife but had a son named Thunder Man, and the two lived together. When Coyote called for him a great storm came with him, and Coyote, fearing that too much thundering would crack the earth, told Thunder Man to make thunder but not to break the rocks or the trees, and gave him the cocoon rattle, the whistle and the split-stick rattle to sound in its place (Loeb 1926). Thunder Man was also told that when the water came he was to let the salmon out, tying the season's first thunder to the arrival of the fish runs. Thunder likewise appears as an individuated mythic personage across the narratives assembled by Samuel Barrett from the Northern, Central and Eastern Pomo (Barrett 1933).

Parentage

• Coyote

Domains

• thunder
• salmon runs

Powers

• to make thunder and storm without splitting the rocks or the trees
• to let the salmon out into the streams when the waters come

Sources

• Loeb, Edwin M. (1926). Pomo Folkways. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 19(2): 149–405. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Barrett, S. A. (1933). Pomo Myths. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 15. Milwaukee: Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee.